Jimmy O’Keeffe political prankster, who took himself to be the conservative answer to Michael Moore, Borat, Jon Stewart, finds himself and his network of conservo-kids (funded by the Scaifes and Coors) ready for trial and then the Slammer for illegally entering a senator’s office.

Here he is on his first day in the Pen, arriving in his Super Fly suit. From here I’d say it doesn’t look good for Jimmy. Except perhaps if a Scaife or two can keep him company.

Here are some of my best and worst moments from last night’s State of the Union.

Worst:

1- Obama’s giving away the store on NEW NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS and CLEAN COAL Technology, which is an oxymoron (perhaps requiring Oxy-clean) . Was that necessary to advocate for climate legislation? Uchhh.

2- Bipartisan veneers, in the face of mud thrown at him for 365 days straight. I wonder if he’s heard about this.

Best:

1- The great moment when he got everyone on their feet cheering: “Jobs must be the focus of 2010.” And a second later, with all the Republicans (noticeably John Boehner) applauding: ” . . . and that is why I am calling for a new jobs bill tonight.” Swift.

2- Ending the idiotic “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

3- The picture of one of the bandits in bedsheets, Alito, surrounded by a president, Congress and American people clearly condemning their disastrous decision on corporate campaigning, mouthing, “It’s not true”. Not quite a Wilson, but we got it just the same.

A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?

It’s appalling on every level.

It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. Jonathan Zasloff writes that Obama seems to have decided to fire Tim Geithner and replace him with “the rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon” (Mellon was Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, who according to Hoover told him to “liquidate the workers, liquidate the farmers, purge the rottenness”.)

And it’s a betrayal of everything Obama’s supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view — and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008. A correspondent writes, “I feel like an idiot for supporting this guy.”

Now, I still cling to a fantasy: maybe, just possibly, Obama is going to tie his spending freeze to something that would actually help the economy, like an employment tax credit. (No, trivial tax breaks don’t count). There has, however, been no hint of anything like that in the reports so far. Right now, this looks like pure disaster.

A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?

It’s appalling on every level.

It’s bad economics, depressing demand when the economy is still suffering from mass unemployment. Jonathan Zasloff writes that Obama seems to have decided to fire Tim Geithner and replace him with “the rotting corpse of Andrew Mellon” (Mellon was Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, who according to Hoover told him to “liquidate the workers, liquidate the farmers, purge the rottenness”.)

And it’s a betrayal of everything Obama’s supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view — and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008. A correspondent writes, “I feel like an idiot for supporting this guy.”

Now, I still cling to a fantasy: maybe, just possibly, Obama is going to tie his spending freeze to something that would actually help the economy, like an employment tax credit. (No, trivial tax breaks don’t count). There has, however, been no hint of anything like that in the reports so far. Right now, this looks like pure disaster.

Yesterday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a woman apparently got into an altercation with a painting. The picture in question, Picasso’s “The Actor”, reportedly lashed out and flung her to the floor, creating a six-inch tear in the canvass. “I was looking through her sketches”, a guard said. “I guess the painting just got fed up.”

FYI . . .

Steve Brodner feels he is a newcomer to illustration but that's because he has a really bad memory. Much of his career is worth remembering in any case. Most of it has been about a guy getting to absolutely live his dream; making pictures that make stabs at telling the truth in print about things he feels are important. He is still at it, now moving across platforms, believing, with some justification, that we are all content providers and can now see our ideas shape and get shaped by all manner of media. This site is dedicated to that. And above all, to the best of our imperfect faculties, to telling the truth.

Caricature is…

Caricature, which is a subcategory of illustration, is about finding the narrative elements within a portrait and making them clear as tools in making literal and figurative points. When done for publication, it is not merely about making big things bigger and small things smaller. It is storytelling. This involves knowledge about what is under the surface of a face and teasing it to the top. Caricature is not the destination. It is the journey. It's the bike you ride.